Too Far
by PrimeEmily135
Summary: Pitch has only one solid believer after his fight with Jack and the Guardians. She was the reason he was even strong enough to rise again in the first place. But as he is drawing strength again from her fears will he push her too far past her limit? Will he lose her belief forever? PitchxOC


**Holy crud! I spent forever trying to write this! Man, I hope it wasn't time wasted. You guys tell me ;)**

**I do not own RotG. :)**

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The night air blew wistfully against the faded shudders as the lonely night drug on. The sky was veiled behind a vast array of clouds, masking behind it the darkened moon. It was cold and desolate, quiet and forlorn. The same could be said for the figure inside the old, broken down apartment.

Emiline slumped over her desk, her head buried in her arms. Her long brown hair was strewn around her shoulders and over her long forgotten school books. Her pencil lay forgotten, long since rolled off of her uneven desk and onto the stained, creaky floor boards. Her empty fingers scratched softly at the sketch pad, each page filled to the fullest of the same thing...

She had first seen the spirit when she was a child. He had come to her the day she had seen her mother and father both murdered. She had been only nine years old when it had happened, and nearly thirteen years later she could remember it all with perfect clarity. The blood. The pain. The loud gunshot that had cost her the hearing in her left ear. Being trapped between a wall, a dumpster, and the bodies of her mangled parents until the police showed up. Frightened and scarred for life, that was when she had first heard his smooth yet deadpan voice.

He had called himself 'the Boogeyman', and he had taunted her until she was screaming in fear. The paramedics had to sedate her to quit her thrashing and screaming for him to quit speaking. With the blood of her parents smeared on her, she was torn away from them to be sent to a hospital for treatment.

Through the years the monster from her mind had returned, continuing to torment her in her sleep. She would wake up, crying, screaming, digging into her own flesh. And then she would see his eyes watching her from the shadows in her room. His smirk ever plastered to his face. When she told her host parents about what she was seeing, she was instantly given 'help'. She was sent to an institution for the insane. For three years she had been locked up there before being released. There she had learned to control her night fits, but he never left. He was constantly with her. But it wasn't always such a bad thing..

After she was released from that prison of an institution, she finished high school. During that time, Pitch had slowly become the only person she talked to. He would arrive in her bedroom every night, ask about her day, and then send her into tortured Nightmares. But it wasn't all that bad. When he would come to visit, he was kind, and he spoke to her with almost admiration. It almost made up for the fact that he was responsible for a lot of the bad things that had happened to her... Almost...

Lately, he had become more violent. She wasn't positively sure why he had changed so drastically, but he had become more gruesome with the nightmares he gave her. Instead of replaying her memories he altered them. Sometimes she would even be the soul behind the weapon that had killed her parents. Monsters. Such horrid creatures she would cry out like she had when she was young. And when she awoke, she found nothing but anger in the eyes of Pitch. Anger and Pain. She hadn't seen anything but his eyes watching her from the darkness in a long time and she was almost thankful. By now, she was simply terrified that he might physically harm her.

But, even with that thought in mind she had slipped off into uneasy rest. Her window opened to the dark cruel world outside, her only protection from her Nightmares the candle lit lamp on her desk...

But such protection from Pitch would not last, and soon the small flame was snuffed, allowing the Nightmare King access to her damaged mind.

He slipped into the room quietly, watching her from inside the shadows. He was quite weakened. After the affairs with North and the other Guardians he had been sent into an abyss, only now being strong enough to appear in the young woman's apartment in his actual form. His hair was disheveled and his clothes tattered. His many cuts and bruises had only just begun to heal, courtesy of the fear so easily provided by the girl in the desk chair. But it wasn't enough. He found himself needing the power like he hadn't felt in centuries. It was a ravenous beast inside his chest, one that refused to be subdued.

He could barely stand on his own two feet for a length of time, and walking became a laborious task. He had to drag himself to stand beside her, and he couldn't stop himself from leaning against the desk as he looked down at her. His one faithful believer. For thirteen years she had believed in him and kept him just strong enough to keep going. It was her fear alone that kept him going now. In all the years he had known her, he had found that her fears fueled him the most. They were pleasant to the eyes and her whimpers and cries were like music to his listening ears.

"Dear Emiline..." he whispered her name like an old friend, his fingers daring to reach out and caress her lightly hair cover cheek. "I owe so much to you..." he felt her warm skin shiver at his touch and he quickly retracted his hand, frowning. He had always admired her warm, peach colored skin. His mere existence was always so cold, and when he touched her the warm feeling seemed to spread through him, calming him and easing his pain. "But tonight that is not the case." he said regretfully. He wished that he needn't be so harsh and evil to her, but it was the only way to ensure that she would keep believing in him and always give him the strength that he needed. "I am so very sorry Emiline." he said quietly, leaning down to press his dark lips to her temple, and he released his nightmares to do their work.

Standing back he watched as the most horrific dream unfolded in her mind. Already a sense of new power seemed to seep into his limbs and he stood taller with a new found ability. He clenched his fists tightly, his nails biting into the flesh of his palms as he soaked in the power radiating from her. It was ecstasy. Pure unadulterated ecstasy, filling his veins. Power finally renewed in him, he let loose a relieved chortle, eyes closing calmly.

"No..." the slightest whimper of fear reached his ears and he took a glance downward at the quivering mortal, twitching in her sleep. Her boney hands clenched into fists and a lone tear escaped her hidden pristine brown eyes. As she shifted, a golden splash on the paper beneath her arm caught his attention, and he saw nearly his perfect reflection staring up at him. His bright eyes piercing the darkness of the page. "P-please stop..."

His gaze torn between her and the picture of himself, he couldn't decide what surprised him more. He knew she was an excellent artist, but she hadn't shown him these depictions of him. They were cruel, vile, unfeeling. And her silent cries for him to release her from her Nightmares were new to his ears. Sure, in the past she had pleaded for the monsters to go away. But never had she asked so desperately, so brokenly for him to stop.

"Stop...Stop it!" she cried, her shoulders tensing in frustration of the fact that she couldn't wake up! "Please..." her tears traipsed down her cheek and jaw, wetting the black pages.

But he didn't let her find relief. Stepping back farther from her, he watched greedily as his Nightmares attacked her subconscious. Her twitching continued fitfully, and he continued to ignore her pleas.

She had always been strong. It was one of the things Pitch always told her. She could take anything life threw at her most of the time. Hell, she had almost been raped and she was still able to function! She had seen many horrible things, but somehow the Nightmare king had slowly pushed her to her limit. He was pushing her to a brink of insanity. "I said stop it!" she forced herself to wake. Her dark brown eyes leapt up to meet his as she stumbled and fell from her chair onto the creaky floor. Her heart hammered in her chest, and a hatred she thought she could never feel had stamped its place on her heart. "G-get away from me!" she stammered, her hand grasping the desk drawer in search. "I-I never want to see you again!"

Pitch tisked quietly, shaking his head in the negative response. "You know I can't do that Emiline. You know I need believers, strong ones like you." he reached out a hand to offer her help up, but she remained where she was. At first, he thought it was the fear of the Nightmare still running through her. Perhaps he had gone a little overboard. But when she finally found what she was looking for he didn't see fear in her eyes, he saw desperation and contempt.

"Get. Away. From. Me." she cocked the gun in her hand, pointing it dead center of his chest. He was slightly taken aback by the action but overcame the feeling quickly enough.

"No mortal weapon can kill me Emiline." he laughed, waving for her to put the gun down. "You might as well face it. We shall be together for a long time. And you will always believe in me."

Her hands quivered fitfully as she lowered the pistol. "I-I may not be able to kill you, but I can still end this-" she lifted the barrel to her temple and her eyes teared. Pitch for a moment didn't understand what she meant, then his heart seemed to stop.

Panic gripped him, tearing him apart from the inside out. "Emiline no-" he stepped forward but froze in place as she held the gun tighter. Her hair gathered in her face, trying to hide the tears in her longing gaze and the blood dripping from her lower lip. "Please, don't do this..."

He knew he had gone too far now. He had abused her belief and tortured her for his own personal gain and for what?! So she would kill herself to be free from him? His one true believer...

"Don't pull that trigger Em, just put it down.." his voice lowered to a whisper, hoping to calm her raging emotions but it did little use.

"No!" she shouted, clenching her eyes shut as the tears streaked down her face. "I can't take this anymore! You pretend to be my friend and yet you poison my mind every time I need rest! What kind of sick monster are you?!"

"If you would just let me explain-"

"No!" she shook the gun pointedly, her finger wrapping around the trigger. "I won't be your puppet anymore! I won't!" she sobbed, and he clenched his fists helplessly at his sides. "No more..." she started to pull the release.

"Em, please!" he stooped down to his knees, now becoming desperate. She was the only thing he had left. He couldn't lose her too. "Don't throw your life away."

"Shut up! Your just trying to use me! Why should I listen to you?" she was so dangerously close. If her finger even twitched, it would be over.

"Because-because I-" he couldn't think. It was just too sudden. He was always one to have a plan, know everything to say, but now he was empty. He felt numb. "I can't lose you." she wasn't satisfied with that answer. She close her shining eyes tightly, bracing herself. "Wait!" he pleaded, grasping for anything he could say. Manny he swore was amused at his feeble attempts to relate to this human. There was nothing that attached her to this world, let alone to the Nightmare King. They both knew this. "I-I can't... Em, you are the only person your age who has been able to see me in so long..."

She shook her head at him, the anguish in her soul apparent by the agony in her voice. "I can't live like this.." her broken spirit was already gone. She was ready to die. But something kept her back. She wanted to hear that at least one person on the miserable face of Earth would miss her. But it was apparent that even her main antagonist, the only man to ever get close to her, to be able to be called a friend yet enemy, wasn't going to give her that satisfaction. If he would miss her, he would have said something. "Goodbye Pitch."

"No!" *Bang!*

All was still. The noise of the gunfire left a heavy feel in the air around them. A fearful silence.

Her broken sob was the first thing to pierce the void. Pitch had wrapped his arms around her tightly as he pushed the pistol away, and she cried onto his shoulder as he held her close. Her tears streaming down his chest made his numb heart flutter with agony and relief. He had been able to stop it.

"Pitch...you should have let me-"

"No." he said firmly, his long grey fingers weaving into her frazzled brown hair as he held her tighter. He refused to let her go. "I can't let you go. Em, I love you. I can't bear the thought of you leaving or forgetting about me. That is the reason I tortured you for so long. I didn't see that I was hurting you by doing so and I am so deeply sorry!" he bent forward, burying his face in her neck. "Don't leave me..."

Her sobs slowly ceased as he held her, her shuddering shoulders slowly stilling and her body relaxing into his. They were quiet and he was honestly cursing his inability to break it. He wished she would say something, anything. But she didn't. She was unresponsive.

"Em?" he breathed softly into her ear as her hands slowly worked their way up his chest and around his neck. She shivered softly in his embrace, and he formed a blanket out of the darkness to cover her. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking...you need to talk in my other ear. I can hardly hear you." she almost laughed and he felt his heart lighten considerably. But he didn't move. He couldn't. He was just frozen in place. "Pitch please, don't scare me anymore. I can't take it..."

He pulled away only slightly, his hand reaching up to cup her cheek, his thumb caressing her face. "I-I promise." he choked it out, but he had too.

"I promise..."

* * *

When the lights of early dawn seeped through the window shutters it cast a glow over the two figures resting upon the small bed against the wall. One slept soundly while the other watched, both completely still. Pitch had spent the night entirely keeping his watchful gaze upon her, making sure she didn't try to hurt herself anymore. She hadn't moved since he lay her on her bed, and that worried him, but on her lips there was a soft smile that he had never seen before.

He wanted to reach out and touch her. Just to simply caress her pale face, to ease his troubled mind. He was terrified that she would awake and not see him. That after one night of kindness to her, she would no longer believe in him. But he didn't want to wake her. She appeared so peaceful with her hair messed around her face and her hands curled up under her face.

The King of Nightmares breathed a heavy sigh as he waited. He was so afraid that she wouldn't see him. It caused his stomach to flip at the thought that he might have lost his closest believer and his only friend.

"Em?" he finally broke the silence, unable to bear it anymore. But she didn't move. "Emiline?"

She didn't respond.

"No...oh please no..." He reached out to touch her, but then her eyes opened. He froze as she looked at him, but she wasn't looking at him, she was looking past him as if right through him. "Em?" he breathed quietly, his voice laden with grief. But she didn't seem to hear.

She looked at the window, past him with a smile. Her eyes sparkled in the new morning light, and she looked happy. It tore him apart.

"No...No!" he cried out painfully, grasping at his aching chest. "Oh, Manny please... Let this not be true..." a lone tear in his eye trailed down his cheek as he watched her looking through him. For a moment her eyes chanced across his, but there was no sense of being seen. She was lost to him.

"This cannot be!" he couldn't believe it. His worst nightmare had come to life... Again he had lost a person he cared about deeply. Head bent forward in sorrow, his long held back pain released in his tears. When he looked back up at her she was still smiling and it she seemed even more joyful. Unable to control himself anymore, he reached forward to pass his hand through her form. But his fingers made contact with her skin, not ghosting through her face as he had expected. Suddenly her smile turned to a smirk and she locked eyes with him playfully.

"Pay-back's a bastard." she laughed quietly at his humiliation, but his shock soon turned into glaring anger. She watched him warily, her smirk of triumph being wiped away and replaced with fear as he trapped her between his arms underneath him. "Pitch?"

He glared at her, his heart pounding in his chest and his cheeks still wet with tears as he hovered mere inches above her. "Never-ever-!" his voice cracked with emotion and he failed to hide it. "-do that again. Ever!"

At the display of feelings from the Boogeyman, she didn't know how to respond at first. She nodded mutely in agreement to his demand, but she had no clue what to make of this situation. She had only meant to give him a taste of his own medicine, give him a scare so to speak. She hadn't thought that perhaps he was just as broken inside as she herself had been the night before. She didn't mean to push him to the point of tears, and yet she had, and he was holding her close as if his life depended on it. His face tucked into the crook of her shoulder as he whispered something she couldn't hear, she simply smiled sadly at him and stroked his hair soothingly. She knew that he was thousands of years older than herself, but it seemed that even he needed comfort from someone, and he was long overdue.

"Pitch..." she hated having to remind him all the time that whatever he was saying she couldn't hear, but apparently he had forgotten about that ear being def. "I hope you know that I can't hear a word of what you're saying."

His heart rate was through the roof, and she could feel his wet tears on her skin. But he slowly was able to calm. His hands slipped underneath her body and he wrapped his arms around her waist. She gave a startled yelp as he rolled her over until she was straddling his hips and she blushed. But there was no shame or trickery in his words, only pure undying insistence. "If you cannot hear my words Emiline, allow me to show you..." he sat up, slowly bringing his dark lips to her pale pink ones. "..just how much you mean to me." his whispered words made chills sweep down her spine, but the feeling was instantly warmed by his hands as they crept underneath the back of her shirt to touch her skin.

"Pitch..." a ball of uncertainty began to form inside of her when his kiss deepened. She didn't like where this was heading, where she might end up in just a matter of minutes. If he wanted to do what she thought he did, she didn't have the physical strength to deny him. Seeming to sense her dread, he pulled away slowly, lightly pecking her lips and up her jaw to her good ear. He brushed her messy hair back behind her ears and cuddled down with her more comfortably on the bed. "Em, you are the only one who has given me the strength to go on, and not only because of your fears... You give me something to look forward to every day. I love coming to visit you, talking with you, being believed in by you." he paused, as if his voice had suddenly been lost and he had trouble finding it. His gaze dropped to her lips and she almost felt sorry for him. He must have been so lonely, being hated by everyone and with so few believers.

Another thought occurred to her, striking pain into her chest. A deep sorrow and pity for him stirred within her at the look in his eyes. Even though he had a number of children believers over the years, it must have been thousands since a grown woman had seen him. And it must have been even longer since he was touched. Not that children couldn't touch him, just they couldn't in the way that she could...

She bit down on her lip softly when his eyes jumped up to hers again with a soft smile. She could only imagine how touch starved he must have been for a woman. Suddenly all the looks and comments and care from him all made sense. Even last night he had claimed to love her. And then he kissed her...

"Pitch..." she whispered his name, guilt ridden. How selfish could she have been not to have seen that sooner? As she touched his face his golden eyes shuttered and he gave a quiet sound of relief. She took the opportunity to lean in and kiss him, just lightly enough to pull away without consequence. "I have to get ready for work.." she mumbled, wishing that the sun would go back down and that they could have more time to talk everything out. Already the light in the room had increased enough for her to see how sickly he looked. His grey skin was scarred and his body bony, like someone had just stretched his skin over his skelleton. The sad look in his eyes didn't make the image any less desperate or needy.

He sighed deeply, running his hand through his dark hair. "I suppose it was inevitable..." he looked anywhere but at her, suddenly feeling very self concious. She was staring at him. Had he made too large a move? Was kissing her like that too forward? Would she reject him? Was she leaving because of him, or was it really time for her to go? Was she even fit to work? She had just tried to commit suicide...

All those questions and more distracted his mind, making him painfully unaware that she was already leaving.. She uttered a quick goodbye to him, but he didn't hear. The door squeeked open and crashed shut, and he still sat in thought on the edge of her bed.

He had pushed her too far once in the last twenty-four hours already. He prayed desperately that he hadn't done it again...

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**Okay, I'm pretty sure that even a guy can't go thousands of years without company or positive attention. And I'm sure that Pitch would be a very emotional train wreck if his one and only adult, female, companion tried to kill herself to get away from him. :(**

**Please leave a Review :)**


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